If you can't attract readers for free, then who will buy your book? (Or another piece, as the same applies to other media.)
Your buyers, like all people these days, don't have the time or attention span to buy any book they come across.
Of course, they buy books for the following reasons:
- Loved the cover;
- I was interested in the title;
- I was interested in the description at the back of the book;
- I liked the beautiful content of the book (font, layout, paper of the pages of the book... Yes, buyers pay attention to these things);
- Heard good reviews.
But have even the best prepared book - if the topic is not interesting, no one will buy it. And the interesting thing... Ah, the most complicated part - the relevance of the topics to the reader depends not only on the reader himself (age, gender, situation in life) - but also on the current situation in the world and the work of other authors.
For example, a book about how to motivate yourself to achieve your goals would have been sold easily in Lithuania in 2010 - it was a good time, because many children of independence (born around 1990) came of age, and the economic crisis was ending, and there were simply no such books.
But a book about these topics in 2022? Worn out. Just not interested. Many authors have written books about it in Lithuanian, so you can only win if:
- You wrote extremely original, exclusive;
- Your book is simply "newer" and wins because there are still buyers who believe novelty value.
For these reasons, it is difficult to accurately say whether your book will be bought. Guessing, but guaranteed to know before it's printed? It's difficult.
One free way to find out: share your work for free.
The benefits of that sharing are great:
- You find out if your work is interesting to someone at all;
- You get new fans if your work is also liked;
- If you don't like it, you get preliminary criticism, which you should correct before publishing the work.
...And it doesn't cost you anything, because when giving a gift, you don't need to convince them to open their wallet. Just, here, I created it and take it.
NOTE: You don't have to share the full piece. 🙂 Only half of the book can be shared. Or by section. Or an abbreviated version. If that's all you want. I would share the full song, but if you're scared, you can limit yourself and add an advertisement at the end of the song saying, here you go, buy the full version here. You will get the DEMO mode of the piece.
Of course, it is possible to promote the book through Kickstarter - as Vilius Stanislovaitis did. There are more free ways to check the value of a product.
